


Billet-doux

by traitorminion



Category: Bravely Default (Video Game) & Related Fandoms
Genre: ALL THE GOOD STUFF, Angst, Drama, M/M, Pre-Canon, Spoilers, also slightly au i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-28
Updated: 2016-03-28
Packaged: 2018-05-29 14:01:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6378895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/traitorminion/pseuds/traitorminion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Janne and Yew during their school years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Billet-doux

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MintyCoolness](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MintyCoolness/gifts).



> This is for minty to whom I owe a lot. Without our chats and your head canons I never would have finished this.
> 
> Also I upped Janne's age, mostly for my own self-indulgence. Please enjoy!

In the fall after Janne had joined the Empire, he received his first assignment from the Kaiser. It was the second time he’d been allowed to attend a meeting with His Majesty Himself, and Janne was anxious to find out how he would finally contribute to their cause. He didn’t care that it might get him hurt or killed, as long as it helped advance their plans, as long as it opened the door to that other world where his parents wouldn’t have to die like dogs in a pool of their own shared blood—as long as this world would die along with him in the end.

 

Ash to ash, dust to dust.

  

* * *

 

When he laid eyes on Yew for the first time, Janne decided that he must have made some kind of mistake. Maybe he’d gotten the classroom wrong or something, because somebody so small and unremarkable surely couldn't be related to His Majesty.

 

Yew sat alone at his desk in the front row of the classroom, where most pupils volunteered to sit under life-threatening circumstances only, immersed in some huge tome. The other kids had huddled together at the other end of the room and eyed him warily, whispering to each other. Janne picked up the words “Geneolgia” and “freaky.” Yew, never looking up from his reading, didn’t notice.

 

Neither did he notice Janne when he crossed the room and plopped down on the seat right beside his.

 

Janne cleared his throat.

 

Nothing happened.

 

Janne cleared his throat again, louder this time and with an added grain of indignation.

 

Yew shifted a little to get access to the back pocket of his pants, pulled something out of it and held it out to Janne, still not looking away from his book, the little runt.

 

Janne stared at his outstretched hand. An Eternian cough drop lay in it. Janne recognized the brand; his mother had bought it for him sometimes. Irritated, Janne pushed the memory back to the far-off edges of his mind where it belonged.

 

“I don’t want candy you’ve been sitting on,” he said, unable to hide his disgust or incomprehension at the general lunacy of the situation.

 

The moment the words had been uttered he realized that he’d probably just compromised his mission and, as a consequence, His Majesty’s plans. He clenched his fists at his sides. He’d known he wouldn’t be any good at this. He had never gotten along well with others his age, or anyone, really. Most of the time he hardly got along with himself.

 

At the very least he’d finally caught Yew’s attention.

 

Round and blue, like the ocean reflecting the sky, infinity coalescing with infinity, his eyes studied Janne with an intensity he didn’t think anyone could ever get used to.

 

“Are you sure?” he asked, absurdly earnest.

 

“Yes,” Janne said because, all mission objectives aside, not in a million years was he going to eat something that had been in contact with another person’s backside.

 

Yew shrugged, unwrapped the candy and popped it into his mouth.

 

“My name is Janne, by the way,” Janne added before Yew had the chance to return to his book.

 

“Nice to meet you, Janne,” Yew said with a smile that was just as intense as his eyes.

 

In time, Janne would learn that _intense_ was Yew’s sole modus operandi; he only knew how to do things seriously, honestly and _wholly_.

 

Janne could never make up his mind whether that was his greatest vice or virtue.

  

* * *

  

Janne ended up together with Yew in all of his classes at Al-Khampis Academy, not just because he and Yew were both aiming for the Crystal Guard but also because Yew had enrolled for courses on _every_ subject available.

 

Needless to say, he became the talk of campus within their first day at school.

 

“Not yet twelve years old and already attending lectures on microbiology. Either the boy’s a genius or mad,” Janne overheard one professor say to another.

 

As the day progressed, he drew the tentative conclusion that both might be the case.

 

Elevating the concept of diligence to a whole new level, Yew took notes on everything, including the laboratory safety regulations. Later he explained to Janne that he’d developed his own shorthand so he wouldn’t fall behind during class while writing. He also had questions about everything. It nearly drove Dr. Cid, their chemistry teacher, crazy when he kept pestering him with the question why water was wet. Janne had never witnessed anything so bizarrely entertaining, which only validated his prior assessment: there was no way Yew was the Kaiser’s younger brother. Somewhere throughout the mission briefing Nikolai must have messed up with exceptional panache.

 

During lunchtime Janne snuck out of school and went to tell him so.

 

Nikolai averted his eyes from the letter he was working on and said, blinking, “Excuse me?”

 

“You slipped up, old man,” Janne repeated, settling on the couch, and winced as one of the springs dug uncomfortably into his back. “Isn’t there a nicer inn in town? This one sucks.”

 

“I’m terribly sorry,” Nikolai said blandly and turned back to his letter. “Now please elaborate why you’re here and not on your post.”

 

Janne snorted. “You can’t be serious. Have you _seen_ him? This has got to be a joke.”

 

Nikolai jotted down a few more lines until there was no ink left in his quill, put it aside and heaved a sigh of a singularly exasperated quality that Janne knew all too well.

 

“It doesn’t matter whether he lives up to your expectations or not,” he said, shooting Janne an adult version of the stink eye. “He still shares half of His Majesty’s blood, and we’ll keep watching over him as long as His Majesty wishes.”

 

Janne sunk deeper into the cushions and muttered, “Why don’t we keep watch over little ducklings? That’d be just as eventful.”

 

In lieu of providing an immediate response, Nikolai abandoned his seat in front of the desk, folding his hands behind his back, and shuffled over to one of the windows. Minutes passed as he stood there, gazing outside, and Janne was about to inquire if the geezer was getting deaf already, when Nikolai suddenly opened his mouth, after all:

 

“If you had stayed with your duckling, as was your duty, you would have been in the middle of an event right now.”

 

Janne raised an eyebrow, sprang to his feet and joined Nikolai in front of the window. It granted view over the town square of Al-Khampis, which was currently deserted except for three figures chasing another smaller figure across the cobblestones.

 

“Oh, come on, old man,” he whined, slumping a little. “How is this _my_ problem?”

 

Nikolai’s stink eye evolved into a legitimate death glare, and he said, perfectly calm, ”It isn’t. I'll say it again for good measure: it is your duty.”

 

In the meantime, the three pursuers had caught their prey. Janne groaned but did as he was told.

  

* * *

 

In hindsight, Janne thought as he wrestled one of Yew’s attackers to the ground, he should have seen this coming. With his baby face and general geekiness, accompanied by his large name, Yew made the perfect target for school bullies. He might as well have worn one of those signs that said, “Kick me.”

 

“Why are you siding with _Geneolgia_?” one of them shouted.

 

Janne replied by giving him a bloody nose. He whimpered, clasping his face with both hands, and scrambled away, together with his companions.

 

“What a wimp,” Janne said, rubbing his dirty hands on the expensive fabric of his school uniform. Oh, well.

 

“He almost knocked one of your teeth out,” Yew pointed out, apparently having sustained no major injuries, and Janne regretted coming to his aid immediately because _there_ was a smartass in a silk tie if he'd ever seen one.

 

“Who said I was talking about him?” he barked and did _not_ wince when his tongue brushed the tooth in question.

 

Yew shrank back a little. “Sorry,” he said. “I’ve never been any good at sports.”

 

Janne stared. He almost asked how Yew had managed to survive this long but then stopped himself. He knew the answer better than anyone else. It lay in a pair of graves behind the ruins of Balestra Manor.

 

“What’re you even doing here?” he said instead. “We’re not supposed to leave campus before the principal’s speech in the afternoon.”

 

“I could ask you the same thing,” Yew shot back sulkily and wobbled to his feet.

 

The taste of copper began to spread in Janne’s mouth. Great, now he had to go back to Nikolai for some white magic so nobody at school would notice anything.

 

After a short silence, Yew, who had no idea who Janne was or why he was here, said, “Thank you.”

 

Janne swallowed, the metallic edge of the blood pricking his throat.

 

The last thing he would ever want was a Geneolgia’s gratitude.

 

Yew tilted his head and scrutinized Janne carefully. There was something off about the set of his jaw. For a silly moment, Janne panicked that somehow Yew had seen through his jig, that he had seen right into the dark, empty pit of his heart.

 

“You can act tough all you want, but you should still go to the nurse’s office,” said Yew, and the moment was gone as quickly as it had come.

 

Heaving a shaky breath, Janne prayed that His Majesty would realize as soon as possible what a waste of time His brother was so he could drop this tedious façade.

 

“Whatever,” he said and let Yew drag him to the infirmary.

 

* * *

 

Rumors spread right away. Too much of a weakling to defend himself, the only heir to the great Geneolgia Household needed a bodyguard to protect him from the unworthy rest of the student body. Even the teachers appeared to have reached that conclusion: on that very first day, when Janne was about to head to bed, Professor Norzen caught him on the way to the boys’ dormitory.

 

“That was a good deed you did today, Mr. Angard, “ he said. He really was as gigantic as school gossip had made him out to be. Janne refused to feel intimidated.

 

“What do you mean, Professor?” he asked, feigning ignorance.

 

Of course Norzen was having none of that. “No need to be modest,” he said with a wink. It took Janne every ounce of willpower he had not to cringe. “The principal would have liked to know about your, ah, special role in advance, though. It would have made the necessary arrangements so much easier, you know.”

 

“‘The necessary arrangements,’” Janne echoed, overcome with a sudden sense of foreboding.

 

Norzen gave Janne a smack on the shoulder with the massive expanse of his right hand. It wouldn’t surprise him if that turned out to bruise him more than his brawl with Yew’s bullies.

 

“Don’t worry, young friend,” Norzen said. “It’s all taken care of. Your luggage has already been moved to your new room.”

 

“My what?” Janne said.

 

“Your new room,” said Norzen, a little puzzled. “Sir Nikolai of the Crystal Guard visited me this afternoon, on behalf of Lord Geneolgia. His Lordship expressed the wish to put you and his son into one room. I was under the impression that you had been notified about this.”

 

_Nikolai, that senile bastard._

 

“Ah, no,” Janne began, attempting to regain his footing. “I mean, yes, you’re right, but when the administration gave me a different room, I thought perhaps His—His Lordship had changed his mind.”

 

Norzen cast him an odd glance and said, cryptically, “Not quite.”

 

Before Janne could inquire what _that_ was supposed to mean, the evening bells rang, and Norzen ushered him into the building.

 

* * *

 

The room was ridiculous. Nestled at the far end of the outlying west wing of the dormitory, one could only access it via a small corridor behind the reception desk, and naturally the housemother didn’t allow just anybody to pass through. It was shaped like a hexagon, with an approximate diameter of twenty-four feet, and furnished like a king’s chamber. In the center stood Yew, looking extremely uncomfortable, a mouse in a lion cage.

 

When Janne followed the professor inside, Yew’s eyes flicked up, zeroing in on Janne, and he straightened, not unlike a defendant awaiting his verdict. Norzen smiled sympathetically at him as they exchanged pleasantries, and it dawned on Janne that he was missing something here.

 

“Well then, Mr. Angard,” Norzen said at length. “Take good care of Young Master Geneolgia.”

 

From the corner of his vision, Janne saw Yew flinch at the title.

 

“I will give it my best, Sir,” he said.

 

Norzen nodded with approval and left.

 

Instantly, Yew pierced Janne with an accusing glare. “Why didn’t you tell me you were working for my father?”

 

Janne sat down on the smaller one of the two beds, which his suitcase had been propped up against, and splayed his hands on his thighs where they could easily be seen.

 

“I was told not to until Sir Nikolai had spoken with Professor Norzen,” he lied. After a diplomatic pause: “I’m sorry.”

 

“So what, my father sent you here to make sure I won’t cause any trouble for the family?” Yew demanded, voice a little unstable, hands balling into fists at his side.

 

Hastily, Janne pondered the best course of action. He had no difficulty conjuring up several scenarios why Lord Geneolgia might want to put his son under surveillance, but none of those would be of any use to defuse the situation at hand.

 

“I’m here to watch over you,” was what he eventually settled on. Technically, it wasn't even a lie.

 

A look of betrayal flashed across Yew’s face, and he said, tartly, “There's no need for that.”

 

“Yeah, right,” Janne said. Anger made its way up his throat, hot and sour and incredulous. “If I hadn’t been there to save your sorry butt, those douchebags would’ve beaten you to a pulp."

 

But the attack didn’t hit. Yew’s expression remained impassive, headstrong and straightforward. He reminded Janne of a sparrow trying to navigate through a storm with sheer stubbornness alone.

 

He shrugged and said, “Bruises heal.”

 

In his eyes simmered a frighteningly familiar kind of determination. It was the same Janne saw when he looked in a mirror.

 

“You still have to learn how to defend yourself, sooner rather than later,” he said as he began to suspect that perhaps Yew wasn't the one caught in a storm. “If you want to join the Crystal Guard, I mean.”

 

For one silent moment, Yew searched Janne’s face—what for, Janne didn’t bother guessing—before some of the tension in his shoulders dissipated.

 

“Would … would you show me how?” he asked, determination suddenly overcast by a jarring shyness.

 

Idly, Janne wondered if there had ever been a person more of a riddle than this one.

 

He smiled, heady and helpless, and found himself trapped by Yew’s gaze, calm yet relentless: the eye of a hurricane.

 

“I said I’m here to help you, didn’t I?”

 

* * *

 

The next day Janne sought Nikolai out at the inn, but the clerk behind the reception desk only stared at him blankly and told him, just as blankly, that Sir Nikolanikov had already checked out. However, he had deposited a letter for someone called Angard.

 

“That’s me,” Janne said, showing the man his student ID.

 

He signed a paper documenting that the letter had been handed over, took the envelope and barreled out the door. Outside he ripped it open and read. The letter consisted of a single sentence: _Meet me in the oasis._

 

“Couldn’t we have had this conversation somewhere slightly more comfortable?” Janne complained, wiping at the sweat on his forehead.

 

“Well, you seemed to dislike my hotel room, so I thought maybe this would suit your tastes better,” Nikolai, _who had no soul_ , said dryly. How he could stand wandering the desert in his bishop cloak was a mystery to Janne.

 

“Very funny,” he said, upper lip stiff.

 

Nikolai ignored that. “I suppose explanations are in order,” he said, adopting a more serious tone of voice.

 

“Damn right,” said Janne and adjusted his collar. “Why did nobody tell me that I was going to be the brat’s official watchdog?”

 

“You’re barely two years older than him,” Nikolai reminded him and held up his hand as a warning when Janne opened his mouth for a retort. “His Majesty told me not to inform you about the nature of your mission right away. He wanted to see whether you would volunteer to help His brother or whether you would only do so under obligation.”

 

“He was testing me,” Janne summarized and kicked at a pebble in the dirt beneath his feet.

 

“But not in the sense of right or wrong,” Nikolai said. “His Majesty was merely curious how you would act. It doesn’t mean He does not trust you.”

 

The air around them seemed to smolder in the solid heat of the afternoon sun. Janne hated the desert, the vast stretches of nothing but sand everywhere he looked. He missed the cool winds of Gathelatio, a city breathing and living in close communion with nature, _his home_ , which now belonged to the murderer of his parents.

 

Trust.

 

Trust had no place in a world like that. It existed exclusively on paper, in fiction, a five-letter hoax, blown away as easily as a dune.

 

“Sure,” he said.

 

Nikolai’s frown told him that he understood what Janne had really said underneath and disapproved. Such a hypocrite. As if he wasn’t using the Kaiser just like Janne was.

 

Janne wanted revenge, Nikolai wanted redemption, and the Kaiser was the means to both their respective ends. While this equation might be morally questionable, it was the only one that _worked out_. The sum at the end was a double negative, but minus multiplied with minus yielded plus: a new world built from scratch, without any of Luxendarc’s corruption. _Tabula rasa_.

  

* * *

 

 

Yew hadn’t lied. He really wasn’t any good at sports. He had the body and mind of a scholar, and no amount of training would change that, but he also had good reflexes and a keen perception, so he wasn’t a complete lost cause.

 

“Do you think I’ll make it to the Crystal Guard?” he asked once after a sparring session, panting as he let himself fall onto the ground.

 

“If you don’t slack off,” Janne said, only half-listening because he was checking their exercising to-do list in his head. They hadn’t practiced fencing yet, but since Yew’s breathing had already become rattled, Janne opted to call it quits for the day and made a mental note to add it to tomorrow’s list.

 

Yew rolled onto his stomach, hair mussed and sweaty, and he looked almost nothing like he had one and half a year ago when they’d first met. He had grown over four inches, and although he still wouldn’t be considered tall by any standards, at least he wasn’t that much of a midget anymore. Since he spent a lot more time outside now—even if it was still a mere fraction of the time he spent behind books and scrolls—he had assumed a healthier complexion, which his reputation on and off campus had profited from immensely. All in all, Janne was satisfied with his progress.

 

Janne’s own development, on the other hand, was worrisome. More often than not, he caught himself forgetting. The soothing everyday school routine made it so easy to lose yourself and the place where you had come from, and each time he remembered he felt as though an avalanche were gaining on him, burying him in the brutal torrents of unforgiving, _unforgetting_ reality.

 

Yew’s presence made it even worse, for obvious reasons. In his company Janne wanted to give up sometimes, to erase and delete, so Yew could teach him how to breathe again without feeling like a house of cards that was about to cave in at the slightest gust of a breeze.

 

“You’re the one who keeps skipping class,” Yew said with a contagious grin.

 

“‘Cause it’s a pain,” Janne said, lying down next to him. “Like I’m going to use half the crap the profs are blathering about ever again. I’d rather do something useful with my time.”

 

"Like what?"

 

Janne mulled it over. "Hunting bandits might be fun."

 

“Hunting bandits,” Yew repeated, and his grin softened. “Yeah, I can see that. You should take me with you.”

 

“A big baby like you?” Janne scoffed, which earned him a playful shove at his shoulder. He smirked and shoved back.

 

Yew pouted. “One day I’m going to be even stronger than you,” he said. “Trust me.”

 

(Trust?)

 

Janne’s stomach lurched. He wanted to laugh and throw up at the same time.

 

(What a joke.)

 

* * *

 

Word of Lord Geneolgia’s passing dropped in Al-Khampis like a bomb. The whole school pounced on the news like vultures. Within hours several versions of the story circulated on campus, ranging from conspiracy theories about Eternian terrorists to conniving intrigues involving the pope and the Crystal Orthodoxy. Janne would have found it funny if Yew hadn’t looked so miserable.

 

The both of them had been given the day off in favor of spending long and grueling hours in the principal’s office, where the entirety of the school administration offered their _sincerest_ condolences to Yew. Some of them even managed to squeeze out a few tears. It was hysterical, in a disgusting, fucked up sort of way.

 

Yew endured it, quiet and dignified. He didn’t cry. He was the new Lord Geneolgia. Lords didn’t cry.

 

Or, in public they didn’t. Once they had retired to their room, Yew deflated, crumpling into himself on his bed, and began to sob. Janne sat down beside him and said nothing. He didn’t know what. His family’s killer was dead, and nothing, not even Yew, could make him feel sorry about that.

 

After a while of wordless weeping, Yew shifted to look up at Janne and said, “I’m a horrible person.” It was little more than a whisper. The haunted look on his face spoke of true terror, as if he had just confessed his darkest, ugliest secret.

 

Janne put an arm around Yew and rubbed small circles into his back. He couldn’t fake sympathy about Lord Geneolgia Senior’s death, but he could do this for him, if nothing else.

 

“Dumbass. You’re the best person I know,” he said and wished he were lying.

 

“You really mean that, don’t you,” said Yew, eyes large and wet and bluer than ever. “I’m not, though. I’m not. My father is dead, and all I can think about is—is that I don’t want to go back. I don’t want to leave.” Trembling, he curled closer against Janne and his half-hug. “I’m not ready.”

 

It shouldn’t have been a surprise—nobody would have been ready for anything in that position—and it wasn’t. No, the surprise was Janne’s gut response:

 

“Maybe not yet, but you will be.”

 

At first glance Yew didn’t seem like a very capable leader, but upon closer inspection there was something to him that always brought out the best in his surroundings. Janne was proof, as insane as that seemed. If Yew learned how to make use of that ability, he had the potential to become the best head of House Geneolgia yet.

 

Janne stopped short in his thoughts. None of that mattered. In the end all that potential would amount to nothing. Yew and his world would disappear in order to be replaced by a new one, a good one. Right.

 

Yew’s tears stopped, and he swallowed thickly. Nodding, he said, “I trust you.”

 

In that moment Janne was glad once again that this world wasn’t going to last and that he wouldn’t remember this later because there wasn’t going to be a “later.”

 

Ash to ash, dust to dust. _Tabula rasa_. Absolution in oblivion.

 

“I trust you, too,” he said, closed his eyes and waited for the world to end.


End file.
